An Imaginary Walk Around Cross Green, Richmond Hill, and East End Park with Old School Mates.
Four of us old guys and two girls who had been at school together in the 1940s had recently met up at a reunion and shared nostalgic tales, here is one of an imaginary walk around our old locality.
The date that suited us all turned out to be the following Thursday and we decided we would finish up with a picnic on everyone’s favourite place: East End Park and duties were allocated for bringing the coffee, biscuits and the scones etc. Came the day for our local nostalgic adventure and we set off from Jimmy Goodall’s old off licence on Cross Green Lane and walked up Fewston Avenue. The first point of interest we came to was the railway bridge across the navvy, we noticed it was now closed to traffic and there had been an attempt to install some troughs filled with flowers to brighten the bridge up a bit. The ‘navvy’, as we called it, was an eighty foot deep railway cutting which had been cut in 1899 to allow goods trains to pass from the main line at Neville Hill to Hunslet Goods Yard and beyond
The Navvy
‘Oh look they have put metal railings up so you cannot walk along the parapet.’ said Bette.
‘What do you mean to say you walked across the parapet? Bette, that was a bit dangerous, a gust of wind and you would have been in for an eighty foot fall.’
‘Yer, it was a regular thing for us,’ said Bette, ‘and we used to muscle across the Monkey Bridge a bit further up too.’
‘Well, I never walked the parapet,’ I said, ‘but I did climb down the vertical side.’
‘We all did that,’ said Bri, ‘you were a wimp if you didn’t at least once stand on the lines at the bottom of the navvy; it was a badge of courage.’
‘We had names for all the stations on the descent didn’t we, I recall there was; ‘Ginner Rock’ and the ‘Town Hall Steps’ and if you managed to get passed there the last thirty feet were easy you just slid down gravel scree. It was not so easy climbing back up again.’
‘That was on the Copperfield’s side,’ said Brian, ‘when I was a lad I lived in the Glencoe’s and we climbed down the other side of the navvy at a place we called ‘the Devil’s Drop’.
The Devil’s Drop
‘It was like that mountaineers call a ‘chimney’. There was the brickwork of the bridge on one side and the rock of the navvy on the other. You put your back to the wall and your feet to the rock and shuffled down.’
‘Now that was a really dangerous manoeuvre,’ I said, ’but do you remember David Wilson? He went one even better; he jumped all the way down near the Bridgefield Pub for a bet, six pence and some comics.’
‘Yes and he broke his arm too,’ someone countered, ‘and he never got the six pence or the comics, of course he has become a legend for his daring deed. Health and Safety have stopped all that now with all those railings, you’d cause more harm to yourself trying to get over those spiked railings than climbing down the actual navvy.’
‘Do you know though,’ said Brian, ‘I’d still like another go at climbing down the old navvy,’
‘What, In the state you’re in now? You’d never make it in one piece,’ said Malcolm.
‘I know,’ said Brian, ‘but I’d just like to have a try. ‘
We did manage to have a peep through the fence to that Brian called ‘The Devil’s Drop before we moved on to ‘The Ginnel’.
‘Oh look the roof has gone from the ginnel,’ said Madge. ‘It’s open to the sky now that the paddy train doesn’t have cross over to the coal staithe, it used to be quite a bit spooky,’ said Madge, not really frightening but you were always glad to get through it, but I don’t think there were the muggers around then that we have around today.’
Next up on our nostalgic ramble we came to the site of the old Easy Road Picture House. Now it was an improvised car wash where young guys were washing cars. ‘Oh I remember the old ‘Bug Hutch,’ piped up one of our voices.
‘You mean ‘The Picture House Easy Road,’ piped up another. ‘It was scruffy but allegedly had the best ‘talkie’ in Leeds’.
‘Do you remember Abe White the jovial Jewish proprietor? He used to stand at the door in his dress suit with a ‘Good evening I hope you enjoy the show’, to all his patrons. If you were not sixteen, which included most of us at the time, you had to buttonhole an adult and say, ‘will you tek us in missus’.
‘Yes, Abe’s sisters used to man or rather woman the pay box didn’t they.’
Abe used to turn a blind eye if you were about thirteen or fourteen, his cinema would have been half empty if he had kept strictly to the rules.
I once got clotched from the Easy Road,’ said Malcolm, ‘by Abe himself. I had been messing about and making too much noise down in the six pennies they were the wooden benches weren’t they, Abe came down and told me off, but I was still misbehaving and Abe came down a second time and pulled me out, as I was going out I grabbed hold of the bench and said can I have this for the bonfire, Right you’re clotched he said, you will not be allowed in here again. But it so happened that soon after that poor old Abe died and his sisters didn’t know I had been cotched so I was back in there like a shot.’
‘You were lucky to get back in then,’ said Bette, ‘if I remember though Abe was strict but fair.’
‘Do you remember the old Easy Road flicks had a balcony, it was a shilling to go up there you would only usually go up there if you were with your mam and dad we could never afford a shilling ourselves. When you think the prices were six old pence at the front (it was only five old pence at the Premier Cinema) nine old pence at the back down stairs at the Easy Road and a shilling in the balcony. Six pence in old money was only two and a half pence in new money and a shilling only five new pence and we thought things were expensive.
The front row of the balcony had an upholstered front rail and I thought it was referred to as the ‘A’ box as it was the first line but in actual fact it was really referred to as the ‘hay’ box as it appeared to be stuffed with hay which was starting to come out. But we had some great times at the Easy Road flicks, didn’t we life would have been poorer for us without the ‘flicks’.
We moved off into Dial Street. ‘Where have all the shops gone?’ Someone asked. ‘There used to be dozens of shops starting on Easy Road from the ginnel exit and moving up Easy Road, then Dial Street and onto Accommodation Road.
Starting on Easy Road There was Alf Allen, the butcher, Nelson the barber, Hall’s chemist, Rocket’s and Louth green grocers, Pecks shopkeeper and father up Wall’s ice cream and the NAAFI bakery. On the other side there was Bill Benn’s bike shop The Porterprinter’s yard, Easy Laundry, Boxup’s, then after the Easy Road picture House there was East Leeds Working men’s club, Overend’s fish shop, and the Breeze Block concrete Company, They had an annexe at Knostrop too I believe.
Madge was toting up all the different shops there used to be on the three streets: Easy Road, Dial Street, and Accommodation Road, ‘there were three chemists: Halls, Hutton’s and later Alexander’s and Timothy Whites up Dial Street. That was at least three and I’m not sure there wasn’t another up Dial Street and butchers, how many butchers were there? There was Alf Allen’s, , Revel’s, Cardis, Dawson’s Frank Ward’s Beal’s, Quimby,s and then of course the Co-op had a butchery department.’
Yes, don’t forget the coop,’ said Brian, ’everybody had to remember their co-op number to get their ‘divi’ paid.’
‘And don’t let us forget the confectioners’, said Malcolm.
Mr Emmott was the newsagent he held we lads in the palm of his hand he had the the contract to distribute comics in the area, comics were on a permit in the area because of the war effort, it was a seller’s market he only let his favourites have them and if you stepped out of line, goodbye comic.
‘I remember my mam shopped at the Thrift Stores,’ I said, ‘she used to drag me there by her hand, the shop was always full to the door with women and their babies, the bacon machine was always whirling away cutting rashers off the bacon and it had me in mind of that old music hall joke, ‘Please don’t sit your babies on the bacon machine, ladies we are getting a little behind with the orders.’ A little later I believe another of our old class mates, Glenny, served in the shop.’
Now we came to the streets called The Bertha’s, Those streets had women’s names didn’t they, Like The Bertha’s, the Nellie’s and the Elsie’s, probably the names of the builders daughters. Those streets were filled with our contemporary friends who attended: Mount St Mary’s, Ellerby Lane, All Saints and St Charles’s schools, you didn’t know them all to speak to but you knew most of them by sight as they tended to do the same things as we did.
Now we were coming to the Chapels, New Bourn, and Richmond Hill, sadly the chapels that flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries were now badly depleted in the 21st century. Here too was the surgery of Doctor Devlin and Wade the dentist. ’I bet we’ve missed loads out.’ I said.
We were now at the site of the old Prospect Hotel. ‘I was in the prospect one night when the mother of all fights broke out,’ said Brian, ‘I was in there having a quiet drink with a few maters in the singing room, there were two huge parties of lads in there, there must have been twenty lads in each party taking up a half a dozen tables up each. One group were easily identifiable as they were all decked out in string ties, You could see they didn’t like each other there had been a few curt words and a few drinks spilt. Towards the end of the night you sensed something was developing and it kicked off just before closing time all forty lads started fighting, we took to the walls to give ‘em room, Buffets were flying and there was blood and broken glass everywhere, guys were laid out on the floor. My mate, George, said, ’look they’re putting ‘em a fresh tie on and sending them out again.’ The room was completely trashed, there were no bouncers on hand to sort this sort of thing out in those days they relied on a tough landlord to quell such things but this was something else, I think they had to close the singing room down for a bit until they got it sorted out, we used to refer to it as ‘The Battle of the Prospect’.
We were now descending Richmond Hill towards York Road passing the site of our Iconic Richmond Hill School, which was bombed by the Germans on the 14th March 1941. It was through the night so there were no fatalities but the pupils were scattered around the area mostly to Ellerby Lane School or evacuated for safety completely out of the area. Richmond Hill School had a good football team, so did Mount St Mary’s it is said when they played each other on East End Park it attracted a four figure crowd.
The railway cutting was really deep at this point it had at one time in its early build been a tunnel and even now the bridge was about 100 yards long with buildings constructed upon it. There was another pub down Accommodation Road too before we reached The Hope in, That was the Accommodation Inn a grand little Melbourne pub opposite yet another fish and chip shop that you entered on a slant.
Madge pointed out to the left. ‘Oh look Edgar Street Clinic used to be there, didn’t it? Who remembers Edgar Street Clinic?’
Well, we all did, you went on your own, mams didn’t take kids to the dentists in those days. The waiting room was a place of purgatory, you slid along wooden benches waiting your turn and listening to the screams from the inner sanctum, kids often lost their nerve when it was their turn next and went to the back of the queue again. When you got into the surgery they would put a horrible green mask over your face and a metal clip into your mouth to hold it open. If you needed the drill it would be a foot drill affair. When they had finished with you, you passed into another room with a line of sinks where kids were spitting out blood everyone moved up a sink to accommodate the new arrival. Ellerby Lane School also had their woodwork department on Edgar Street.
We were now at the Hope Inn (still Standing). The trams ran past here on York Road and it was here the number 63 bus turned at right angles from York Road into Accommodation Road. Straight across used to be the huge multi story York Road Board School but it had been derelict as long as I could recall.
At the other side of York Road was the Saville Green district. We played football against their school but it was generally a bit out of our arear.
We turned right here and passed that which was formally the Hemmingway’s Brewery. It just struck me that If you had grown up in a close knit community like ours you became familiar with every stick of the area. Having said that the next up was the popular York Road Baths and Library and I had never been in there, that was because our school used Joseph St baths and at the weekends we tended to jump on the 61 bus and attend Union Street baths in Eastgate which was easier to get to.
‘Oh! I used to go to the York Road baths and the Library,‘ said Brian, ‘the changing cubicles got so full we had to get changed on the balcony, I think they had other arrangements for the ladies. Some nutters used to jump into the baths from that balcony and when the guard wasn’t present they would muscle along the metal beam that crossed the bath and drop in in the middle. Ellerby Lane School used to have their swimming lessons there and they talked of a demon swimming instructor who was quite cruel to them he used to push them under with a long pole, some used to talk about dreading having to go to his swimming lessons but he must have had something about him as he trained Doris Story who went on to win the breaststroke at the then Empire Games and they say she would have won the Olympics if they hadn’t changed the technicalities of the breaststroke. She later went on to take over her parent’s fish and chip shop which was close to here. Next up we came to Eveleigh Road. ‘Oh this is where we used to go dancing at the LUYMI.’ Said Madge, .
We continued to move further up York Road and the old Star Cinema came into view on the other side of the road, now advertising as a martial arts gym
Once cinemas began opening on Sundays in the mid-fifties the Star Cinema became a favourite venue for ‘boy meets girl’. ‘Do you remember the length the queue got to sometimes on a Sunday,’ said Malcolm ‘it wound right around the building and you feared there would not be enough room inside to get us all in.’
‘The thing was,’ I said, ‘the programme was continuous, if it got full they would wait till a couple came out then they let a couple more in so when you managed to get in the main picture might be half over, so you had to pick the film up and watch it to the end, sit through the interval, watch the shorts and the newsreel and then watch the main picture until you get to the part you had seen and that was when the old phrase developed, ‘this is where we came in’ and you left the cinema and allowed two more to come in, unless that was the last showing of course.’
‘Yes it wasn’t ideal but like everything else, you just got on with it. Anyway you didn’t just go there to see the film it was a social event as well wasn’t it?’
We now approached the site of the old Victoria School, it was now a single story nursery school but we all remembered when it was a huge multi story school.
‘They had a good football team here in the 40s and 50s, ‘I said, do you remember Willie Knott? He was a sporting legend the best at everything he attempted and do you remember that iconic Schools Cup final in 1951: Victoria v Ellerby Lane, which became known as the ‘lucky dressing room final’ The Ellerby Lane school team had sent a lad up to claim the ‘Lucky Dressing Room’ but the Victoria school team arriving later turfed him out and took over the lucky dressing room themselves and the luck of the dressing room held true, although Ellerby Lane were favourites to win Victoria won the match. Much bad blood followed between the two schools over that ‘turfing out’ incident for many years.’
Victoria School
‘But we St Hilda’s lads remember Victoria School for something entirely different, don’t we lads,’ said Malcolm.
‘Yes,’ we replied in unison, ‘Cleggy!’
We lads from St Hilda’s School attended the woodwork class at Victoria every Friday afternoon from the age of about eleven onwards.
‘Go on tell the tale about Cleggy Pete, ‘I’ve heard you tell of the infamous ‘Cleggy’ before but give us it again.’ said Malcolm.
‘OK here we go,’ I said, ‘Cleggy: Cleggy, the woodwork teacher at Victoria School was a legend. Victoria was a large school for its day and had its own woodworking department; our school didn’t, so we attended theirs every Friday afternoon from about the age of twelve or thirteen onwards.
Before you embarked upon this adventure for the first time you would be painted a picture of Cleggy by the lads who were already attending the woodwork class. ‘He’s about six feet four – with eyes like saucers,’ one would say. ‘He’s a little weedy bloke with hands like shovels,’ another would say. ‘He hits you across the head with pieces of two by one,’ would say another. Each one altered the tale a bit so you didn’t know exactly what to expect – but you had an idea you weren’t going to like him.
Tales of him abounded, ‘If you spoil a piece of wood,’ they would say, ‘he’ll ask you what you want – the mallet or the chisel? If you say mallet he lays your head on the bench and whacks it with the mallet about an inch from your head so that your head bounces up and down on the boards, if you say chisel, he lays your hand on the bench and goes in and out of your fingers in quick succession with the chisel. If you move your hand you’ve lost a finger.’ You can image that with all this build-up we lined the stone steps up to the Victoria Woodworking Department on our first Friday, prim in our new white aprons but filled with trepidation.
‘Be quiet!’ boomed a voice from aloft. You could have heard a pin drop. After an eternity of complete silence came the order, ‘Come!’ We marched up in single file and lined up to attention in front of several rows of benches and there saw for ourselves the redoubtable ‘Cleggy’. He was a man in his sixties, not tall but barrel chested beneath a brown dustcoat, his bulging eyes had beady centres and nestled beneath huge bushy white eyebrows, which were by far his most prominent feature. So this was the famous ‘Cleggy’.
You could tell he was held in awe for some of the lads in attendance were absolute villains back at our school but here they weren’t making a whimper. Proceedings began with a reading of the register. Cleggy would read out your name and you answered, ‘Here sir’, he’d make a stroke for ‘here’ and a naught for ‘absent’. Woe betide anyone arriving this week who had a naught entered against his name last week – Cleggy would pause upon such an name for an inordinate period allowing tension to build up, then very slowly he would lift his head and scan the line beneath those bushy eyebrows – when he located the unfortunate culprit he’d rip him apart with verbal ridicule. This charade ensured that one turned up for woodwork by hook or by crook in order to avoid this public humiliation. There was one lad however, Geoff Mellish, who had a long string of noughts after his name, he’d been off that long he daren’t come back. When Cleggy reached his name in the register he’d just make rude noises with his mouth, ‘Mellish – braarp’ and move on.
Once this initial ordeal was out of the way we’d begin work on our particular pieces and Cleggy was OK – he’d persevere with you if he thought you were trying and there was no doubt that he really knew his stuff. If he thought you hadn’t tried though he’d call everyone round your bench with a piercing whistle, then he would put your piece in a vice and proceed to tighten it until the piece disintegrated and you were left red faced.
If he caught your messing about or watching the girls playing netball out of the window – they had some big lasses at Victoria – then the pieces of 2” x 1” would fly, a woodworking room is no place for larking around. Of course he never actually aimed to hit anyone. I don’t think many of us lads minded so much being punished for a ‘clean cop’. Especially back at our school the cane was the natural order of the day. Corporal punishment is frowned upon today but for us it was no big thing, it stung for a moment then it was over, you bit your lip and showed the rest you weren’t hurt. If you managed to do that then you had taken another step on the road to manhood. A teacher would often congratulate a lad who took his punishment without rancour. Now if the punishment was to miss a sports lesson, then that was really the bad news. (Girls didn’t have the cane).
About five minutes before home time Cleggy would give one of his famous whistles, when we heard this we had to stop dead in our tracks like statues. This was the signals that all tools had to be returned to their racks, we had one stand for pencils and another for rubbers – if a pencil or rubber was missing we stayed until it was found, sometimes we were still looking twenty minutes after we should have been going home but the item had to be found before we could go and always was, nothing went missing permanently.
The day came which is indelibly etched on my memory, out of the blue Melish turned up, some frightful consequence must have been threatened by the headmaster back at our school to warrant such a suicidal mission. We lined up in the usual fashion, Cleggy began to read out the register with his normal wry comments and rude noises for anyone who had been missing the previous week, we waited in electric anticipation for him to reach Mellish’s name. ‘Mellish – bruurp’. Cleggy prepared to move on as a matter of course when from somewhere in the line was heard a timorous ‘Here sir’. The ensuing silence was the longest yet it seemed to go on forever. Finally the teacher’s head began to rise, ever so slowly – up came those bushy eyebrows, up came the bulging eyes with the beady centres and began to scan the line, he didn’t know all of us as individuals as we only came to Victoria for half a day a week and he had several other schools who came too. ‘Mellish’ he said again, in incredulous tone. ‘Here sir’, answered Geoff, the tallest lad amongst us but now shrunk to half his size, ‘Here sir’. Cleggy slowly rose to his feet and pointed towards the door, ‘Go back to your own school’ he said, ‘and ask them to give you some knitting to do.’
Geoff left the room and was never to be seen in Cleggy’s woodworking section again.
Cleggy retired during our stint in his class, which would have been around 1950, so we can assume he was born in Victoria’s reign, his values were those of the ‘old school’ he demanded respect and he got it and I bet you couldn’t count the number of craftsmen joiners and carpenters he’d turned out during his long teaching career. He lived in hope of receiving a decent delivery of timber for us to work upon, but with the war recently over materials still was scarce, timber was needed for post-war recovery and our stools, teapot stands and bathroom cabinets had a low priority. The timber we did have through was pine and pine gives off the sweetest of scents when worked, even today when I catch the sweet smell of pine I’m pleasantly transported back to Cleggy’s woodwork room and reminded of the ever absent Mellish.’
‘We had cookery classes here too didn’t we Madge in a class room underneath the woodworking room but it was not as seemingly traumatic as your woodworking class,’ said Bette. The old school friends discussed the cookery classes as we progressed further up York Road.
Almost all the shops were closed and shuttered now we noticed on a road which once had been as lively as the town centre, much of that was obviously due to the fact that York Road, once a single carriageway with tram lines down the centre and even cobbled in places was now a busy dual carriageway with fly overs and cars travelling at manic speed, you couldn’t have crossed the road now if you had wanted to apart from the new subways, which didn’t lend itself to friendly local shopping.
When we finally reached Victoria Avenue, which is the street that runs down from York Road to East End Park and then on through the park itself, it became more as we remembered it. The avenue had been blocked off at the top where it once exited into York Road and was still a pleasant tree lined avenue and the houses had retained their little front gardens. It encouraged us to link arms across the street and burst into our signature tune: Off to Marie’s Wedding: Step it gaily off we go heel to heel and toe to toe, our spirits were lifted after the disappointment of York Road.
We were now at the former gates to East End Park, there were just the pillars remaining now and a low metal security barrier all the way around the park baring access to wheeled vehicles.
‘Oh, the park used to be so fine didn’t it? ’ said Brian.
‘Yes, and it still is nice and tidy now’ said Bri ‘and there is still a children’s playground.’
‘But there’s no paddling pool or sandpit,’ someone added.
‘The trouble with paddling pools and sandpits is that broken glass invariably finds its way into then and kids get their feet cut.’
‘Do you remember,’ said Malcolm, ‘we used to assemble in the kids playground on our way up to woodwork on a Friday afternoon?’
‘I do and do you remember the longboat,’ said Bri, ‘and that maniac lass – the demon long-boater – you were brave if you dared get on when she was controlling it, she would set it swinging far higher than it was supposed to go and it used to go into that we called ‘the locks’ where it would come to a dead stop and if you weren’t prepared it would throw you right off.’
‘Happy days,’ said Brian, ‘and do you remember the band stand? It’s gone now it was a gazebo type thing but look the foundation stones are still there we can sit on those to have our picnic.’
Seated on the stones we dished our picnic out overlooking the engine sheds and the football pitches, each of us delving into or own personal memories of the park.
The Engine sheds were still there Neville Hill is still a major railway hut but the big hopper has gone the one we called ‘the coal cracker’ it used to be one of the focal points in old East Leeds.
The conversation returned to memories of the old band stand. ‘Sunday afternoon’s used to be the time when the band stand was at its height the brass or silver band would set its stall out on the bandstand and play genteel songs of the moment, Gilbert and Sullivan, the Merry Widow, the Maid of the Mountain that type of thing. I’m told between the wars guys would parade in blazers and straw Benjie’s and the ladies in skirts or dresses, no slacks or trousers then for the ladies. The yob culture was a distant nightmare of the future.’
We finished up the picnic and tidied up. ’That’s about it then isn’t it ‘said Madge ’we’ve done the full circle.’
‘Not quite, ‘I said, ‘what about our most local site: our school playing fields. Snake Lane or St Hilda’s field as it used to be called when it was owned by the church.’
‘Yes, we’ve got to give good old Snakey a visit before we finish,’ was the consensus. So we made our way out of the bottom gates of the park which were now two just a couple of pillars too.
‘The parkie used to lock the gates up at dusk, didn’t he,’ said Brian, ‘he was very strict’.
‘Yes, he did,’ replied Malcolm, ‘he was a demon but there were railings all the way round then to lock up, they took them away for the war effort.’
We crossed back over the bridge across the railway close to where Doctor Holliday had his surgery and passed by the railway cottages with their plaque ‘1934’, passed the site of the former Bridgefield pub, that used to be a fine building cut down in its prime. We passed over the place on Cross Green Lane where the old paddy train crossed taking its coal from Waterloo Colliery to the staithe the bottom of Easy Road.
‘Do you remember there was an old guy who sat in a little hut across the road and he came out a couple of times a day with a red flag to stop the traffic on Cross Green Lane to allow the train to pass,’ said Malcolm.
‘What a job that was,’ said Bri, ‘the train only crossed a couple of times a day, I suppose he was just a retired miner or someone who had been injured in the mine ’
‘Can you remember the names of those paddy engines?’ said Brian, ‘I can, there was Kitchener, which had four wheels, Jubilee and Dora which had six wheels each, later there was Antwerp and Sylvia.’
‘They were grand old engines,’ I said, ’built in the Victorian era. When we were playing our impromptu games of football on old Snakey we never had a watch and we always argued when we should finish those losing wanted the game to go on so they could level and those winning wanted it to end so they would be winners so we used to say we’ll finish when the paddy engine passes the top goal post. The paddy train also used to pick miners up at the Bridgefield and take them to the mine and back again at the end of the shift, it was a long walk to work if they missed the one and only train, no busses down Black Road in those days.’
We entered our good old Snakey sports field some new children’s playground equipment had appeared at the top and the old top pitch had been completely re-laid and a retaining fence erected to stop supporters encroaching onto the field of play and so allowing the team to compete in a higher class of the game but it was now a rugby pitch and the bottom pitch which used to be our pitch for school matches had gone completely and was now a builder’s car park.
The grass tennis courts the bowling green and the terra cotta dressing rooms were also gone. We were standing on the rubble which had once been the largest of the terra cotta dressing rooms.
‘Do you remember there used to be a metal drinking bowl attached to the wall here with a tap above it,’ said Brian.
‘Yes, I remembered, ‘It had an iron cup held by a chain so no one could nick it , Amazing we all drank from it but we never seemed to poison each other, did we?’
Malcolm had gone a bit glassy eyed he seemed to be thinking deeply and then he began to speak. ‘Do you know I was up here on my own one day, it was early evening and there was an old guy standing alone he must have been about the age we are now, he seemed to be out of it a bit and he was chuntering to himself, “It only does it for you once, It only does it for you once” I remember saying to him It only does what for you once, old love. “It only takes you back one time” he said. It only takes you back where? I asked him, I thought he was just an old eccentric and I was trying to placate him a bit but he seemed quite coherent, “It’s the cup” he said, “it has magic properties because hundreds of only young folk have drunk out of it over the years it has built up an overfill of youth and if an old person drinks out of it, say like me, an eighty year old, some of the overfill of youth spills into him, but it will only do it for you once.” I didn’t believe him of course but I was intrigued, How does it work then, “Well if you drink out of the cup it will allow you to have one day at an age seventy years younger I woke up the following morning and had shed seventy years, I was twelve years old again and I lived out the day as a twelve year old, it was wonderful but I’ve been back here numerous times trying to buy another day as a twelve year old but it has only allowed me that once.” With that he shuffled sadly away and I never saw him again. I never thought anything about it at the time and it went out of my head. But just think we are at that age he was now, think how we would benefit from having a day seventy years younger – we’d be about thirteen/ fourteen years old wouldn’t we it would be 1951 what a time we could have!’
‘Well, it sounds like a tall tale,’ said Madge, ‘but look, the cup has gone anyway.’
‘Yes, sadly it has,’ said Bri, ‘but look there’s quite a bit of old rubble strewn around you never know the cup might still be here amongst this lot.’
So we searched through all the bits of terra cotta and general rubbish most had been thrown into the site of the old allotments that had formally been alongside the sports-field but now themselves overgrown. We were almost on the point of giving it up as a bad job when Bette who had been searching a little further afield walked back to join us she was smiling and holding something behind her back, she walked right up to the main body of us who were just standing talking with our hands behind our backs ready to pack up, she waited until she go right up to us and then with a triumphant ‘Da-Da’ she produced from behind her back the iron cup still swinging on its metal chain.
We looked it over it was dirty and rusty but there was no doubting it was the original cup for it was familiar to all of us, every one of us had drunk from it at one time or another.
‘Shall we give it a try,’ I said.
‘Well the original tap has gone so we don’t have the water,’ said Brian.
‘But is it the water or just the cup?’ I offered.
‘Well the old guy who talked to Malcolm said it was the cup, didn’t he,’ said Bri. ‘Have we any water left from the picnic?’
Madge had a look in her bag and said, ’I think there’s just enough for one gulp each if we fancy it.’
‘Who’s game?’ I said and nobody declined.
‘It’s all full of compounded muck,’ wailed Madge.
‘We can use a bit of the water to clean most of the muck out of it then fill it up with what we have left and just have a drink out of the top,’ I said.
So with the cup full we prepared to drink.
‘Just a minute let’s think this through,’ said Malcolm, ‘For a start it’s probably just a tall tale but if it does work will we be transported back seventy years to say 1951, we were all in the same class so we are all roughly the same age we will be just ready to leave school, will we be transported from here or will we wake up in the morning and be young again at home?’
‘And will we be as we were then or will we know what we know now?’ said Brian.
‘That old guy said he woke up in his bed at home and had a full day seventy years younger and lived out his wonderful day until bedtime just as he wished.’
‘Well, let’s consider if we did wake up in bed and we were 13/14 years old what would each of us like to do, what would you like to do? Pete,’ asked Bri.
‘I thought for a minute and then I said, ‘Presumable if we went back 70 years things would be as they were 70 years ago the bottom pitch would still be here, I used to be a decent runner but I daren’t even try to run flat out now for fear of doing myself and mischief, I’d like to set off from the top goal post and run flat out to the bottom goal post without fear of having a heart attack.’
‘Good choice,’ said Brian, ‘and what would you like to do, Bette?’
‘Well, Iused to love riding my Pony particularly in Gym Kharnas, I’d like to make a ring of jumps down Black Road on my old farm and ride him round the jumps.’
‘How about you Bri what would be your wish?’
‘Well,’ said Bri, ‘I was a decent swimmer I once swam across Roundhay Park Lake; I’d like to do it again.’
‘That’s a bit dangerous,’ complained Madge, ‘Roundhay Park Lake is supposed to be bottomless a few have drowned in there,’
‘Well I’d like to give it another go,’ said Bri. ‘How about you, Brian, what would you like to do ?’
Brian had obviously been thinking about it, ‘Well ever since we just looked down the navvy I’ve had a yearning to climb down it again for old time’s sake, obviously I couldn’t attempt it in this useless old body but if I were young again I could give it a go.’
‘What about you, Madge?’
‘Well, as you know I always liked to go dancing, I’d like to go dancing to one of those lunch time sessions they used to hold at the Mecca in the County Arcade, In the Leeds City Centre.’
‘Well, that just leaves you, Malcolm, if we manage to get back in time what would you like to do?’
‘Well mine is a simple request, I always lamented the passing of the tramcars in 1959, I really had a thing for the old trams, I’d like a ride on an old tram.’
‘Right what have we got?’ said Brian, ‘sprint, horse jump. Navvy, dance, tram ride, swim. So if we manage to get back to 1951, meet up here at nine o’clock, Pete can have his sprint here between the posts, then we go down to Bette’s field set up a jump course, back for my attempt on the navvy, a bus ride in to town on the old 61 bus, up the arcade for Madge’s dance at the Mecca, and then a tram ride to Roundhay Park for Malcolm and finally it’s Bri’s swim across Roundhay Park Lake.’
‘You seem to have got it all sorted, Brian,’ I said, ‘it sounds like a plan.’
‘Well that ties it up nicely, ‘said Bri, ‘but what if it’s a school day and what if we can’t remember what we decided to do.’
‘Oh that’s a lot of if’s and but’s let’s play it by ear, but remember to find some old money to put in your pockets we might have to spend a bit. Right if all goes well we meet here at nine o’clock.’
We all took a swig from the iron cup.
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East Leeds Memories 